And We Carry On
by greeneyedandfreckled
Summary: She was tugging at a stray thread on her vest when she felt him sit next to her. Maybe if she didn't meet his gaze, Enjolras wouldn't feel the need to speak. Of course, she was wrong. / Enjolras/Éponine, a short drabble.


**A/N: This It's honestly not very heavy E/É. It can be seen as both a close friendship, or a romantic relationship, depending upon how you read the subtext. I really do like this, though, and would encourage you to put forth any kind of constructive criticism you can! Thank you!**

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She was tugging at a stray thread on her vest when she felt him sit next to her. Maybe if she didn't meet his gaze, Enjolras wouldn't feel the need to speak. Of course, she was wrong.

"Does Marius know you're here?" he asked her gently. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, which were not angry, as she had expected. Rather, they looked old and worn. Like he had lived a thousand years.

"Of course not," she replied. "He thinks I'm still delivering letters to his dearest Cosette." She pulled an envelope from her vest. "Little he knows, little he sees."

Enjolras rolled his eyes and relaxed so that his back was firmly against the brick wall, with one leg laid out, the other bent up. He tilted his head up and closed his eyes. Éponine remained hunched over her crossed legs, and picked at the corners of the envelope.

"You had so many chances to go, to escape from all of this. Why do you stay? For him?" Enjolras opened his eyes, and turned his head to try and meet her gaze. She continued to pick at the letter, and waited for him to continue on to a long speech about she should start valuing herself more than she valued Marius. He didn't. A long silence ensued, and his watch remained.

"What is it that you await, Enjolras?" she asked him, eager for a subject change. "Victory? Death?"

"That doesn't answer my question." He furrowed his brow and closed his lips, and she knew that he would refuse to say anything else until she properly answered him. She finally let her shoulders roll back to touch the wall and her legs to stretch out before her. She sighed.

"I stay for many reasons. Marius is one of them." She said it so frankly, that Enjolras chuckled quietly.

"Oh? And what are the others, pray tell?" With one eyebrow raised and a smirk played upon his lips, she could not help but smile bashfully. She broke their eye contact, and stared ahead at nothing in particular. She could be honest for once in her life, and tell him the truth. She could tell him that the reason she stayed, was that she knew she would die.

"I stay for my friends. Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Joly. I stay for my family, Gavroche." She paused, and, after she heard a cough from a sleeping soldier, she turned her eyes back to his. "I stay for you."

She expected him to snort, to roll his eyes, to do something. Instead he turned his head away from her and up to the sky as he closed his eyes and sighed. Éponine waited in an uncomfortable silence.

"I don't know what I await," Enjolras whispered after a while. "I know it is not victory, but I hope it is not death. At least not for all of us." Éponine suddenly realized how this weighed on him. That he carried the burden of knowing that every single one of his friends' blood was in his hands. At this point, his bent leg had lowered itself, and his hands lay in his lap, palms opened up lazily. She tucked the letter back into her shirt, and laid her hands on either side of her. She waited for him to continue, but he did not. He just breathed softly and looked at the sky. She imagined he was praying.

After a short time, she suddenly slid her hand onto his lap, and intertwined her fingers with his. He looked at her, confused at the comforting gesture, which was altogether very unlike Éponine.

"Well, Monsieur Enjolras," she said softly, "whatever it is that you await, you do not await it alone." Enjolras smiled, and laid his second hand on top of their grasp. He looked up at the sky once more, and then closed his eyes.

"In that case, Mademoiselle Éponine, I am glad it is you that accompanies me."


End file.
